The Clinical Core of the Southwestern Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center will be charged first with assuring that pediatric and adult patients in the Center receive state-of-the-art care according to local and national standards, management protocols, and care pathways. The other major function of the Clinical Core will be to provide an infrastructure for the conduct of inter-center collaborative clinical studies that are chosen by the Centers Steering Committee. The clinical care functions in the Dallas pediatric arena will be implemented by a highly committed team of experienced physicians, advanced practice nurses, clinical nurses, and healthcare professionals in other disciplines. In order to successfully conduct the inter-center clinical research studies, these same individuals will be assisted by a research nurse and clinical research associate (data manager) whose responsibilities will include monitoring patients on clinical trails, obtaining necessary blood and other tissue samples, administering study drugs, collecting and accessing data and transmitting it electronically to the Statistics and Data Management Center. Moreover, a full time nurse coordinator in the adult clinical core will serve - with assistance from his or her pediatric colleagues - multiple roles in order to develop the infrastructure necessary to undertake inter-center clinical studies including adults as well. Each of the other academic medical centers in Texas and Oklahoma which participate in the Southwestern Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center has clinicians and investigators with extensive experience in clinical research involving sickle cell disease and will receive funding to support their active engagement in research studies.